How to go beyond the 30’s spot using archetypes in brand storytelling

Adriana Peña

BRANDED ENTERTAINMENT

CONTENTS

I. Why brand storytelling and brandedEntertainment?

II. Brand storytelling

III. Brands and the fulfillment of universaldesires

IV. Brand storytelling and archetypes

V. Creating branded content witharchetypes, a case study: SnickersRoadtrip TV show

We all know that no matter how much we could crave for those glamoroustimes when one could smoke and drink in the office, the Mad Manadvertising days are long time gone. The 30 second spot obviously isn’tenough anymore.

Brands are exploring different windows and messages, breaking out oftraditional commercial spaces and trying to merge with entertainment, aspace where we naturally pay attention. The most straight-forward way to dothis has been through classic product placement but that is not enoughanymore either. In order to stand out and to make genuine connections, abrand must give something back, it must reward the consumer for grantinghis time and attention. Margaret Mark and Carol Pearson in their groundbreaking book The Hero and the Outlaw: Building Extraordinary BrandsThrough the Power of Archetypes, cite the work of Mary Jane Schlinger fromthe University of Illinois to prove this point:

‘‘ Analyzing viewers’ responses to hundreds of televisioncommercials, Dr. Schlinger discovered that the most effective adsdemonstrated a principle of “reciprocity”: When the viewer was“given” something (beyond the information necessary to consummatethe sale) in return for his or her time and attention, the running of the adconstituted a “fair exchange,” a kind of quid pro quo in return for theviewer’s time and attention. Viewers were then more likely to considerrewarding the advertiser with their business.”Mark p. 290

This is what branded entertainment is about: “reciprocity”

WHY BRAND STORYTELLING AND BRANDED ENTERTAINMENT?

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‘‘ In the early days of navigation, mapmakers would mark themysterious gaps on their charts with cheerful warnings such as, “Therebe dragons!” . . . the truly creative people are those who are irresistiblydrawn to do battle with them.”The Desingful Company, p.37

So, there be dragons on the way to branded entertaiment. How do we gobeyond the traditional advertising messages? How do we keep ouraudience entertained and compete against the endless entertainmentoptions they are exposed to? What role does the brand have inentertainment? How does a brand communicate it ́s message throughentertainment without heavy handed, obvious, and tasteless productplacement? How much branding makes the entertainment lose credibility?When does subtle branding go unnoticed?

There be dragons! It is an interesting journey. We shall be prepared to slaythe dragons. Our weapon: storytelling.

This is the core challenge of branded entertainment: Story Telling

Six words are enough to tell a captivating story. In six words we haveconflict, narrative tension and we can infer characters and the plot. We canbe moved, even feel empathy. Six words are enough, especially if they´rewritten by Ernest Hemingway. He is said to have called this short, short storyhis best work.

"For sale: baby shoes, never worn."

One of the ways of rewarding ourconsumer’s attention is by giving thementertainment. In turn, when the consumer isentertained he is more likely to lower hisguard and to let himself be influenced bythe message.

How should a brand communicatethrough entertainment?

How do we move beyond the 30 secondspot? How do we fill the gap betweentraditional brand messages and non-traditional brand entertainment?

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In the early days of navigation, mapmakers would

mark the mysterious gaps on their charts with

cheerful warnings such as, “There be dragons!” .

. . the truly creative people are those who are

irresistibly drawn to do battle with them.”

The Designful Company, p. 37

So, there be dragons on the way to branded entertain-

ment. How do we go beyond the traditional advertising

messages? How do we keep your audience entertained,

competing against the endless entertainment options our

audience is exposed to, including Hollywood, primetime

television, music, and live shows? What role does the

brand have in entertainment? How does a brand com-

municate it´s message through entertainment without

heavy handed, obvious, and tasteless product place-

ment? How much branding makes the entertainment los

credibility? When does subtle branding go unnoticed?

This is the challenge of branded entertainment. There be dragons! It will be an interesting journey. We shall be prepared to slay the

dragons. Our weapon: storytelling.

Stories are strongly associated with entertainment—movies and books and TV shows and

magazines. When children say “Tell me a story,” they’re begging for entertainment, not

instruction.”

Heath p. 208

There has been a lot of work regarding the role of brands in human psychology, many of those

discussions seemed to agree that these days we buy products much more to satisfy

psychological needs than functional ones.

What is a brand? Robert Walker, New York Times Magazine columnist says:

“Branding is really the process of attaching and idea to a product. . . If a product is successfully

tied to an idea, branding persuades people—whether they admit it to pollsters or even fully

understand it themselves—to consume the idea by consuming the product. . . A potent brand

becomes a form of identity in shorthand”

Walker, p. 8

brands and the fullfillment of universal desires

BRAND STORYTELLINGStories are the cornerstone of branding, Richard Maxwell and RobertDickman, in their book The Elements of Persuasion say that “stories arefacts wrapped in emotions and the key to remembering facts is to anchorthem it those emotions” since stories make people act, they provide a toolfor persuasion. Advertising is ultimately about persuasion.

Martin Lindstrom in his book Buyology states that because emotions are theway in which our brains encode things of value, a brand that engages usemotionally will win over the one that does not.

So, in a world were people buy for emotional reasons,having a compelling brand story to tell is a must

However, the skills needed to tell a good brand story in longer forms are notusually the same skills needed to produce traditional advertising pieces.The relationship between stories and brand experiences is not so clear.

Think for a moment: what makesspecial events special? Why is awedding different from any othergathering? Why is a concert like LiveAid different from any other concert?The answer is story.

A wedding is a celebration with a storythat supports it, the story of a man anda woman who promise each other alifetime together. Live Aid is a showwith a story, a show that tries to helpsolve a conflict of hunger in Africa.

A good story can also providemeaning to a product, going beyondthe product’s inherent benefits bysurrounding them with significance

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To tell the story of the brand we have to find first the archetypicalpersona of that brand and use that archetype to tell stories that areconsistent with the brand archetype.

In the art of storytelling elements like plot, characters, conflict and messageare always part of the narrative but how can we tell a story of a brand thatincludes all these?

The theory of brand archetypes provides a very usefull blueprint for makingcompelling stories. If used correctly, it can help us define what type ofcharacters and conflicts can best tell the message we want tocommunicate.

BRANDS AND THE FULFILLMENT OF UNIVERSAL DESIRESThere has been a lot of work regarding the role of brands in humanpsychology; many of those discussions seemed to agree that these days webuy products much more to satisfy psychological needs than functional ones.

If a brand is a sort of halo, a layer of meaning that surrounds a productthen where does that meaning come from?

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Martin Lindstrom in his book Buyology states that because emotions are the way in which our

brains encode things of value, a brand that engages us emotionally will win over the one that

does not. In his research using MRI and other brain scan technology, Lindstrom has proved

than although both sides of the brain the prefrontal cortex responsible for higher thinking and

discernment and others areas responsible of emotional thinking show intense activity

patterns, emotions override over rational preference (Lindstrom, p. 26).

So, in a world were people buy for emotional reasons, in a time when there is not a such a strong need to be convinced with rational arguments as it used to be, having a compelling story to tell is a must.

Brand Storytelling and ArchetypeElements of a StoryStorytelling theory tends to divide a

story into: message, conflict,

characters, and plot.

Message is the statement of the story,

its significance, the central theme. The

message is the piece of truth that the

story intends to illustrate.

Conflict is what makes the story move

forward and what makes the audience

engage. In order to have a story we

need tension, there we need an antag-

onist that provides obstacles between

the protagonist and his desires. If the

conflict works, if it is compelling

enough, the story will succeed.

Characters are the most visible aspect

of the story. They must generate

empathy with the audience and they

illustrate the conflict by living and

reacting to it in very “human” ways.

Plot is the series of events that make

up the story.

Most advertising creatives tend work through the

storytelling elements from intuition. However, if we

intend to use longer form stories successfuly in

advertising through branded entertainment, we need

to let our clients be familiar with these elements and

we should learn to use them from the beginning of

any creative process, even as early on as a support

to the creative brief.

Most of these metaphors are derived from ancient archetypes.That´s why we chose to work primarily on a brand storytelling modelbased on archetypes

Brands essentially strive tosatisfy basic human desires

Those desires have been personified inuniversal archetypes present in allmyths, legends, religions and greatstories.

Gerald Zaltman states in his bookMarketing Metaphoria that a verypowerful tool to decipher deep levels ofconsumer thinking regarding a brand isto discover the metaphors that thisbrand triggers in them.

Archetypes, in Jungian psychology, can be defined as “a primitive mentalimage inherited from the earliest human ancestors, and supposed to bepresent in the collective unconscious” (New Oxford American Dictionary).Archetypes have been vastly studied and have even made their way topopular culture and advertising.

Archetypal brands are classless, ageless, andregionless, and their deep meaning is unconsciouslyembraced by everyone.

As we know Joseph Campbell studied myths from around the world in hisseminal work The Hero with a Thousand Faces, a book which eventuallyprovided the groundwork for George Lucas’ Star Wars.

More recently, Margaret Mark and Carol Pearson have applied archetypaltheory to the understanding and shaping of successful brands. Theyexplored the archetypical meaning of brands in their book The Hero and theOutlaw.

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Their model connects brands with the problem or human desire they aretrying to solve; then it maps those universal human desires or motivations intoa simple system with two axes with major human drives at each end:Belonging vs. Independence, and Stability vs. Mastery

Mark and Pearson suggest that if we analyze product categories according totheir original purpose we can map them across this grid of universal humandesires.

For instance, beer as a category appeals to a desire to belong, anyone canhave a beer, it doesn’t matter how big your bank account is or what you dofor a living. The beer-drinking spirit is inclusive, it is a sort of unifier, and thatis precisely its appeal.

What would products like health and insurance appeal to? Those brandsappeal to our desire for stability and control. Sporting goods, such as high-end sneakers, are tools to achieve mastery. Airlines and Travel appeal to ourdesire to explore and conquer.

Once a brand is mapped in some point of these axes of human desires thenext step is to find the brand archetype to be able to shape memorablestories and enduring characters about the brand archetype. A brand can bethe Hero, the Lover or the Joker, once we have a character we can tell thestory about it.

Once up on a time there was a king….

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In essence, if brands somehow satisfy universal human desireswe can relate brands to archetypes. Our hypothesis was that wecould tell stories about those archetypes, instead of making longproduct placement videos.

These archetypes are portrayed in common stories, tales and legends fromall times and cultures. We all know some version of the story of the Hero, orthe King, the Outlaw, or Romeo the Lover. These are universal stories thatcontain powerful archetypical images. That is why they have been repeatedthousands and thousands of times in the stories from the Greeks, Romans,the Bible, Hollywood, advertising, and so on.

Most stories throughout history andacross cultures show a recurringset of characters.

Each of these characters has aprimal desire, a set of goals, astrategy by which they can achievethese goals, and a gift or specialtalent. These qualities can also betransferred to brands. In fact, themost successful brands are brandsthat consistently convey their identi-ty in a way that makes sense.Usually, the “personality” of asuccessful brand will fit in veryneatly in an archetype.

BRAND STORYTELLING AND ARCHETYPES

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“Just Do It” is a message about giving your best to reach your goals. Nike isabout achievement, about being the best and about winning. Nike is aboutmastery. Nike is clearly a hero brand. A hero’s main desire is to prove hisworth though courageous actions. His goal is to prove his mastery in a waythat improves the world. His gift is his competitiveness and bravery. DoesNike fit into this description?

NIKE, THE HEROJust Do It

RED BULL, THE EXPLORERGives you Wings

“Gives you wings” is a message about giving you the energy to explore theworld and to create your own path. It’s about having the energy to break thenorm, to master different skills to get you the moon. We all remember thespace diver sponsored by Red Bull, who did the first human skydiving fromthe stratosphere, breaking the sound barrier on his descent and becomingthe first human to do so and thereby taking the meaning of the brand slogan“Red Bull gives you wings” to the ultimate extreme.

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If we continue matching successful brands to archetypes, we could findsomething like this:

Using these archetypes as guides, we can create characters that correspondto universal human needs and desires. Characters that are compelling andbelievable, who can live through a story that conveys a message that movesemotions and can be entertaining.

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We are fortunate to have the opportunity to put these ideas to the test with aninnovative client, creating a successful award winning branded entertainmentcampaign.

Snickers, the chocolate bar from Mars, was implementing in Mexico theSnickers Urbania brand strategy. This consisted of organizing massive urbanfestivals with competitions in various extreme sports, expressions of urban artand live music.

In 2009, Mexico City saw the fourth edition of Snickers Urbania, an event anda extreme sports competition that expected 100 thousand people. We werecalled to work on the content around the brand experience and alsoimplement the digital strategy of the brand and the public relations aroundthe massive event. The idea was to have a coherent history told trough thedifferent windows that the brand was planing to use to touch its consumers.

The creative proposition for the content was to work in a genre that isvery typical and relevant for this sort of story: the road movie. Shiftingfocus from the competition to a trip around Mexico where some keycompetitors would practice in different parks and terrain before the contest.That was the set up of the story.

CREATING BRANDED CONTENT WITH BRAND ARCHETYPESA CASE STUDY

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Creating branded content with brand archetypeA practical case

Snickers, the chocolate bar, is implementing in Mexico the Snickers Urbania strategy. Snickers Urbania began ten years ago in Russia and has been incredibly successful. So much, that the brand is exporting the concept throughout the world. The strategy consists of organizing massive multidisciplinary urban festivals, with extreme sports competitions, expressions of urban art, and live music.

In 2009, Mexico City saw the fourth edition of Snickers Urbania. The event expected 100 thou-sand people. We were called, for the second time, to work on the content around the brand expe-rience. On top of the content, this year we would also implement the digital strategy of the brand and the public relations around the massive event, the idea was to have a coherent history told trough the different windows the brand uses to touch its consumers.

Reccomendations• Not to base the content exclusively around the event itself. • Looked for the stories behind the event we would have much more compelling content• Focused on the events central spectacle: the skateboarding and extreme bicycle (bmx) compe-titions. • Meet some of the competitors to find the right characters for Snickers’ story. The characters had to meet two criteria: they had to have skills in their sport and they had to have a compelling story that resonated with the brand values.

The creative proposition for the content was to work in a genre that is very typical and relevant for this sort of story: the road movie. The excuse was the competition. We would organize a trip around Mexico where some key competi-tors would practice in different parks and terrain before the contest. That was the set up of the story.

So, going back the the elements of the story, we had to define the message,conflict, characters, and the plot.

The Message:Our story was a story of belonging. A story of how being part of a groupmakes you larger than yourself and how having friends and learning fromthem enables you to achieve things that you alone could never achieve.

The Conflict:It was the fear of being lonely. Not belonging is the central conflict in thearchetype of the regular guy. There is also another conflict that has to do withthe competitions: the fear of not being good enough, of not giving your best.

The brand brief was instrumental in helping us shape what stories werecoherent with the brands. Snickers is one of the few chocolate bars that hasnuts wich have protein and protein gives you energy. Therefore, Snickers seesitself as an antidote for hunger and if hunger can’t stop you, nothing can!

The target consumers were male teens between the ages of 18 and 25.Through extensive international consumer research, Snickers had clearlyidentified three motivators in this target:

The need to achieveThe need to exploreand most of all, the need to belong

We selected 4 archetypes to create the brand story:

The OutlawThe ExplorerThe Regular GuyThe Jester

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The Characters: Remember the brand motivators of achieve, explore, and belong? Wematched these motivators to the archetype model and found a set ofuniversal characters that could help us sketch the type of stories that couldbe told around the brand. We came up with the following list:

JokerIs positioned in the belong axis. He enjoys life and the company of others. Weproved that if you can make people laugh, you can be yourself and also beaccepted. Because of his relationship with the desire to belong and the closeresemblance that the Joker has with young Mexican's sense of humor, thiswas an ideal archetype to work with.

OutlawThis archetype worked for the story because it supports the brand brief’smotivator of “achieve”. The Outlaw archetype follows a different path thanHero but is positioned in the same mastery axis as him. The Outlaw wants arevolution, to change the world, to shock and to prove himself. The Outlaw isespecially relevant because it is the archetype most closely related to ournatural characters: young skaters and bmx riders.

ExplorerObviously, this archetype works with the brand brief ́s motivator of “explore”.This archetype helped us contrast the desire to belong with the desire forfreedom and individuality. The Explorer is closely related to puberty, ourtarget’s stage in life, when they are struggling to find themselves and to drawtheir own identities. The Explorer fulfills his desire not only through a symbolicjourney (as do all archetypes), through a real, concrete journey.

Regular GuyThis is the quintessential archetypefor Snickers. The brand themselveshad already identified this. For us,the Regular Guy made sensebecause he is in the belong axis.This archetype provides unitybecause he is inclusive and anyonecan identify with him. His maindesire is to connect with others andhe has the gift of common sense, ofhaving an ordinary but solid set ofvirtues.

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With these archetypes in mind, we set about to discover the real skaters andriders who would tell the Snickers story. The casting process involved a longinterview where we tried to match the kid’s real, genuine stories with thesearchetypes.

Since the Snickers Urbania event was not only about the competitions, wealso invited musicians on the trip. We casted two members of Radio Catoche,an up-and-coming ska band. Their role in the story was to bring in someflavor and diversity and especially to show the concept of belonging byseeing the interaction and collaboration between different urban tribes.

The content came to life in different formats:

Thirteen 30” TV chapters, various clips for the webpage and YouTube, one20” tune-in television spot, with call-to-action to the television show and astudio recording of Radio Catoche’s song “Mi Vicio es Patinar”, which endedup as a free mp3 download on Snickers’ Mexican website.www.snickers.com.mx

Let’s not forget that our ultimate goal was to sell chocolate bars.Therefore besides of creating a long TV branded content format we neededto fulfill a media plan that was carefully designed to meet traditional reachand frequency goals as well as other KPI’s like social media engagementand live event attendance.

The last story element weneeded was the plot. The routeon the road would determinethe set of events that shapedthe story. We carefullydesigned a trip that would giveus certain scenes and pieces ofthe plot to be able to tell a storyin 13-chapter-TV series and thatcould also be unfolded invarious sub formats.

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The content was received very enthusiastically. The general response was thatthe audience related to the stories and the characters. One unexpectedresponse was that even when the audience was clearly off-target, the storygenerated enough resonance and identification for them to engage. We foundthat our parents and mother-in-laws enjoyed the story almost as much as theskaters and riders themselves.

After the experience, the audience felt that the time and attention they gave uswas worthwhile. They got something back from Snickers and they wereentertained and moved.

This case won multiple international awards; Effectiveness Award at Festival of Media Global for theSnickers Urbania Campaign, Valencia- 2010,, Effie Silver Award for Snicker Urbania Campaign,Mexico-2010

Did they purchased a chocolate bar now, in return for the entertainment?

They certainly did! 19% increase of sales.

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Bibliography

Chip Heath and Dan Heath, Made to Stick, New York: Random House, 2008.

Margaret Mark and Carol S. Pearson, The Hero and the Outlaw: Building Extraordinary Brands Through

the Power of Archetypes,New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001.

Richard Maxwell & Robert Dickman, The Elements of Persuasion: Use Storytelling to Pitch Better, Sell

Faster & Win More Business, New York: Harper Collins, 2007.

Langwost, Ralf. Idea Management, Havas Media 2009

Buy.ology, Martin Lindstrom,Doubleday 2008

Marty Neumeier, The Brand Gap,Berkeley, CA: New Riders,2006.

Marty Neumeier, The Designful Company, Berkeley, CA:New Riders, 2009.

Carol S. Pearson, Awakening the Hero Within: Twelve Archetypes to Help Us Find Ourselves andTransform Our World, New York: HarperOne,1991.

Annette Simmons, The Story Factor: Inspiration, Influence and Persuasion Through the Art of Storytelling,New York: Basic Books, 2001.

Robert Schank, Tell Me a Story: Narrative and Intelligence, Northwestern University Press, 1995.

Rob Walker, Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are, New York: RandomHouse, 2008.

The Power of the Myth, Joseph Campbell, Anchor Books 1999

The Hero of a Thousand Faces, Joseph Cambell, New World Library 2008

Archetypesand the Collective Unconscious,Carl Jung,Princeton 1934

The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell, Back Bay Books 2002

How Customers Think, Gerald Zaltman.

Deep Metaphors at Work, Gerald Zaltman, Harvard Business2008

This campaign was produced during my tenure as General Manager ofHavas Entertainment Mexico, I want to thank the extraordinary team of HavasEntertainment; Alfredo Cottin Creative Director, Juan Pablo Urrutia ProductionManager, Denisse Chavez Operations Director, Ana Marin Social MediaCoordinator, Gustavo Serrano Community Manager, Mariat Vega ClientDirector and our courageous client Andrea Aguilar Chocolate Brand Managerfor Mars Mexico.

Adriana Peñaadriana@adrianapena.com

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